


It's Almost Like a Dream

by ScripStrel



Series: Puppy Love [1]
Category: Be More Chill - Iconis/Tracz
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Brooke's a sweetheart, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Getting Back Together, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Light Angst, Post-Canon, Post-Squip, Surreal, but it's not graphic, they kinda talk about the Halloween party
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-10
Updated: 2018-09-10
Packaged: 2019-07-10 13:31:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15950339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScripStrel/pseuds/ScripStrel
Summary: Since when is it fair to have a crush on your ex?Since when does Jeremy's life ever work out?Why is she so perfect?He doesn't deserve this.





	It's Almost Like a Dream

Jeremy was pretty positive he was dreaming. He wasn’t sure whether it was a nightmare or not yet, but it really just didn’t feel real. 

It was his worst subject (European History, because how was he supposed to remember all of those names and dates, especially when everyone was named after each other?), at the worst time (right after lunch, right at the end of the day, when it was impossible to focus because of the lingering food coma and impending freedom), and that all felt normal enough. But he had been paired up with  _ her _ for what the teacher said would be “semester-long research partners.” No way out. No complaining. You’re seniors in high school now, you need to learn to work with people you don’t usually work with. Which was bullshit, of course. They were  _ seniors in high school. _ Everyone knew everyone by now. It was just so  _ surreal.  _ It wasn’t that Jeremy didn’t like working with her. No! She was great! Super smart and super nice and would edit everything without even being asked because she was an angel who liked making sure things were styled perfectly and shit. She was the definition of a well-functioning student. Everything you could want in a group project partner. 

Jeremy hadn’t actually talked to her since all the shit went down with a certain abusive Tic-Tac almost a year before. Which isn’t to say he didn’t want to. It was more that he kinda thought she hated his guts. Kinda thought she would claw his eyes out with her perfectly manicured nails (which he’d overheard her saying were completely natural, and he didn’t know how impressive that was supposed to be, but it didn’t help his morbid fixation on the  _ damn, she has claws, _ thing). Like, if anyone deserved to take a shot at him after that mess, she did. 

But she just waltzed her way over to sit next to him, bouncing on her toes, earrings and bangle bracelets and shimmery nail polish glistening. Fuck, her teeth were perfect and sparkly. Even the look in her eyes couldn’t have been shinier. This was  _ not _ happening. Jeremy subconsciously sunk into his seat, winding his fingers into the ends of his cardigan sleeves, staring a hole into the weird waxy desk surface. He didn’t break eye contact with it when she dropped a stack of color-coordinated notebooks on the desk next to his. He didn’t look up when she arranged her books and pencil case and water bottle in front of her. Jeremy just stared at nothing, hoping and praying that maybe he could just turn invisible. Or, better yet, turn back time to before she would’ve had any reason to even look at him, much less know who he was or what he’d done or what he’d done to  _ her _ .

“Jeremy?” He must’ve jumped clear out of his seat at her hand on his shoulder, because she was giggling, pressing a few fingers to her rose colored lips and rubbing his arm sort of like how one would soothe an animal.

(And now he had that John Mulaney skit stuck in his head, damnit.)

“H-hey,” he said, wincing at how his voice squeaked. Why did he always have to sound like a mouse that got stepped on? Her hand was red-hot on his arm. He couldn’t tell if it was the inevitable burn of his blush, which was working its way up his neck to his ears, or if she actually just carried the heat of her perfection everywhere with her.

What was he even thinking anymore? That made no fucking sense.

“It feels like I haven’t seen you in  _ forever." _ she cooed, as if she actually thought that it was a shame she hadn’t. Like she forgot why he would’ve been avoiding her. 

“Ha, yeah. Just… Life, I guess?” Jeremy tried to look busy by rooting around for some paper or something. Anything to make his hands stop this shaky, clammy thing they had going on. 

She smiled. Somehow, it looked genuine. Jeremy  _ knew _ she wasn’t that good of an actor. She reached up and brushed his hair off of his forehead, just like she had during those few months when she  _ didn’t _ hate him, but  _ should’ve. _ He recoiled. Her expression fell.

“I guess I never actually said I was sorry, did I?” She spoke towards her perfectly arranged rainbow of gel pens across the top of her desk. 

“What? No, no. You don’t need to say anything. I’m the one who ruined everything for everyone, especially you.”

“It wasn’t fair of me not to talk to you, though. I didn’t even come see you in the hospital.”

“I was only there because I’m a fucking idiot. I’m the one who basically drugged you. I’m the one who used you. I’m the one who lied to you. I’m the one who cheated on you.” Jeremy  _ really _ wished the ground would swallow him up. He wished he could spontaneously combust. He wished there would be a fire drill or an earthquake or a zombie apocalypse to save him from this conversation. He wished he’d just fucking wake up already. He didn’t want to  _ not  _ talk about it, but he  _ really _ didn’t want to talk about it. Really, as much as he hated the idea of researching Richard I (whom he only kinda knew because he was the gay guy in that one play Christine dragged him to when they’d half-dated for a few weeks), he would much rather drown himself in Wikipedia pages than do any of this. 

“...Did Chloe ever apologize to you?” Jeremy whipped his head around. Of all the things she could’ve asked, he thought that would be one of the last. 

“What? Why would she?”

She stared at him with wide eyes. They were shining again, but not in a good way this time. “She apologized to me. And she didn’t even do anything to me. Aside from, you know, making out with my boyfriend and then blaming him.”

“I’m still sorry.”

Her lips quirked up. “I know. So am I.”

“I told you, it’s not your fault.” Jeremy crossed his arms and slumped down further in his seat, his desire to disappear stronger than the pavlovian taboo of poor posture.

“I can still be sorry,” she said. “I can wish it never happened, but I can also know that you probably do too. I’m not trying to make you feel like you owe me anything.”

“But I do! I was a garbage boyfriend! I did everything a boyfriend is supposed to not do! I don’t deserve to even have you talking to me right now. You should be blocking me on every social media ever and making sure everyone knows how awful I was. It would only be fair.”

She giggled.  _ Giggled. _ Jeremy pretended his heart didn’t sort of soar at the sound. She was so  _ perfect. _ Why did Keanu have to ruin the only thing close to a chance that he might’ve had with the most perfect girl he’d ever seen? 

“This isn’t  _ Mean Girls, _ Jerry,” and there was the old pet name, that made his spine go weak and made the lump in his stomach freeze even more. “If last year told us anything, it’s that life isn’t fair.”

“So…” he swallowed down the bubble in his throat. He wasn’t sure if it was dread or hope or vomit. “So what… what now?”

“Well,  _ now, _ I think we’re supposed to be getting started on this project on Richard Lionheart,” she said, laying a hand over his trembling one on the desk. “But also, I think I’d like to give this another shot? If that’s alright with you, I mean. I'd understand if you don’t want me back. That’s fine. You could find plenty of other girls. Or guys, if I heard Jake correctly when he said he thought your butt was cute.”

Jeremy ignored his blatant blush at  _ that _ information. “You—you’d want me as a boyfriend? Again? After I fucked it up the first time?”

She sighed and linked her fingers with his. “I want to try. I’ve been thinking about this since the play, so don’t try to convince me that I shouldn’t want to. I don’t feel like I actually dated you before, and I know, you’re going to try and say you’re sorry again. I get it. But you’re really cute and really sweet and if you’d still have me, I want to know who  _ you _ are. I don’t want the perfect boyfriend you pretended to be before. I want to date  _ you. _ At least to see if it could’ve worked.”

Jeremy swallowed. This was happening. Everything he’d been secretly wishing every time he’d seen her in the hallway since he fucked it up. Everything he’d rambled to Michael about (to Michael’s considerable frustration, but it’s not like he could really complain once he’d started asking if he should give Rich a shot). Every daydream and every wet dream. No not like that. Not in a pervy way. Okay, maybe kinda?  _ Fuck, _ he was an awful ex-boyfriend as well as an awful boyfriend. 

He was shaking. It was everything he’d been wanting now that his life was back on track, but he’d never thought he could have it. Now that it was being handed to him, he felt like it was a big fat lie. She gripped his hand tighter and rubbed her thumb across it and a sob scraped at the back of his throat. He didn’t deserve this. 

“I don’t deserve this.”

She stopped massaging his hand. “Deserve what?”

“You, this, any of it.” Jeremy was breathing hard, forcing the hysteria away. He had never been more grateful for a noisy, distracted classroom. “Why are you being so nice? I’m not worth it.”

She sighed and rested her head on his shoulder. Jeremy caught a whiff of her lotion or perfume or whatever. Sweet and ginger-y and clean. Like sunlight. Like spring. Like new beginnings, as fucking cheesy as that sounded. 

“I think you’re worth it,” she mumbled into his arm, and Jeremy’s tears finally started falling. This was too much. He had to be dreaming again. He’d wake up and she’d never talk to him again and he’d have this dream image of her taunting him with her kindness bullshit. Somehow, it was so much worse than any revenge the real-world version of her could cook up. 

And, like in a dream, like in a nightmare that was about to collapse into the shaking terror of robot voices and electricity in his spine, he let himself play along. It would help it be over faster, and it’s not like it was going to get any worse. 

“Yeah,” Jeremy breathed. “Yeah, I’ll go out with you again. We can try.”

She smiled up at him, eyes bright and glittering and he could live in them. She leaned up and pressed a kiss to his cheek and Jeremy’s skin was engulfed in whatever magic she radiated. She turned at last to their assignment and started flipping through the textbook and scribbling notes in her perfect handwriting, all the while keeping their fingers entwined, and Jeremy decided that if this was a dream, which it probably was, he never wanted to wake up. 

“You’re the best, Jerry,” she said at the end of class, when she stood on her tiptoes to give him a peck on the nose. “I’ll see you at Pinkberry later. Love you!”

And she was gone. Like a dream.

“I love you too, Brooke.”

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted some more Puppy Love love. It's an under appreciated ship.  
> I had originally meant for this to be super fluffy, but this happened instead. Oops?  
> Kinda short and sweet because I wrote it in one sitting.  
> Poor Jeremy just needs some love.  
> Brooke's probably not completely in character, but hey, I never did say whether it's a dream or not. 
> 
> I love feedback, so please feel free to leave comments.


End file.
